


Books Are for Revolution

by herbailiwick



Category: Beauty and the Beast (2017)
Genre: Gen, Trans Character, Trans Stanley
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-27
Updated: 2017-06-27
Packaged: 2018-11-19 14:57:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11315772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/herbailiwick/pseuds/herbailiwick
Summary: Societal rules are crumbling at the sound of a new princess’s voice, but Stanley is stuck in an impossible situation.Trans!Stanley, a lot of Belle.





	Books Are for Revolution

Belle had noticed Gaston’s friends’ existence before, from a distance, but as she watched them now, in their quiet mourning, there was something lifelike about them. She felt for their pain; she had to. She knew what loss was like, what it was like to have your hero—in Belle’s case, her mother—missing, taking with them the answer to a thousand unreachable questions. 

She noticed, in particular, the friends called LeFou and Stanley. They had shared a dance at the ball, which was, of course, not unheard of for men to do at all, but between the intensity with which they’d danced and Mrs. Potts’ airily-hinted opinion, Belle understood they were truly the first “out” men-who-romanced-other-men she’d ever seen in town (but, of course, not the first she’d ever heard of).  

And now, with that library that was almost too vast, she had heard of more. It was interesting, to see something break from the norm in the town she’d felt crushed by. She had felt less alone since connecting with Adam, and now she wanted to reach out to LeFou and Stanley, without making it seem too strange.

Both of them were very interested in the spinning candelabra she had invented in honor of dear Lumière’s birthday, luckily, and they asked her about how she’d managed it all, with keen interest. She hadn’t announced that she’d made it at all, but something about her quiet pride and what they’d heard and observed about her had tipped them off.

LeFou had a high voice that sounded like a bird’s song in the early morning when he was truly impressed, and Stanley had a smile that was wide and kind, even as it shielded something that she couldn’t quite place that lived inside of him, a truth that had her wondering if he didn’t need to get away from his provincial life the way she had needed to get away from hers.

Well, part of the purpose of the parties Adam kept insisting they throw was to offer an alternative to the idea of squashing expression and creativity. If she was going to be married to a prince and live in a castle, she might as well have an impact on the rules she no longer had to avoid being smothered by.

“You should see the stuff my father makes,” she said with twinkling eyes. She glanced over to find him, happily chatting with a few ex-soldiers and some wide-eyed children. She was so glad he was not such an outcast anymore.  


***

The good things—creativity, openness, authenticity, _true, deep_   _joy_ —they continued to spread. The town started to heal itself from the cold of its emotional winter, until it wasn’t just Stanley and LeFou who stood out anymore, even for who they decided to romance. In fact, their other friends, Tom and Dick, started spending time with them again.

Stanley got a job working with Madame de Garderobe on a line of fashions that he often modeled himself. It wasn’t very different, in some ways, from actors playing women on the stage, except that, for Stanley, Belle could see that it was.

“We all start out wearing dresses,” a few had remarked amiably. “Now, if he were woman wearing breeches....”  


Belle had a few thousand examples of women wearing breeches in that library, and she soon showed them off on her new book cart, which she started pushing around the castle (or else, having it pushed, when her enthusiasm was larger than the strength of any one person.) But the thing that really drew attention was her putting on breeches herself. 

She found she quite liked them, so that habit continued for a while, and then, all of a sudden, it was fashionable to follow Belle’s suit and wear breeches. 

Stanley started wearing dresses more often than not, and, as a trusted friend of the prince and his compelling new wife Belle, he was afforded protection and respect both of them came to understand he deserved.

*** 

When Adam tapped her shoulder, looking nervous about something she presumed had to do with social interaction, she took his hand and said, “Show me.”

“You’re drunk!” she said in surprise, looking at Stanley. And, he _was_. Sloppy in his simple dress (the gorgeous gowns had led to everyday attire so he might actually get some work done while wearing it), he was clearly deeply upset about something, and Belle gave Adam’s hand a squeeze before flopping down heavily next to Stanley in her breeches. 

“I...have been,” Stanley admitted, glancing at her nervously, his face red, clear tear marks blurring his rouge.   


“Where’s LeFou?”  


Stanley shrugged. 

Belle put her arm around him, sighing out a breath when it made him sob, shuddering for a moment, curling up against her. 

***

It took weeks to coax anything else out of him, any vulnerability, any answers. But Belle was patient, kind, and very curious. 

“Have you ever wanted to be...not Belle?” he muttered one warm afternoon as they sat in the light of the sun together.   


“Sure,” Belle said, and his eyes snapped to hers, wide, almost horrified.   


“No,” he said to her. “I mean... _you_  haven’t.”  


“Sure, I have,” she repeated. “I’ve been miserable, before, in that town, the way it was. It’s a little better now. Almost bearable,” she teased. “And, really, Stanley, I have you to thank for so much of that.”  


His eyes lit up a bit before the joy flew out like a frightened songbird. “No one can ever love me, though,” Stanley said, a whisper he barely dared to leave his tense frame. 

Belle eyed him with intrigued caution. “Why would you say that, friend?” She let him sit in stony silence for a good while.

“Well, is it because he was in love with Gaston?” she finally said. “Mrs. Potts said he’s moved on. You don’t think so?”  


That didn’t appear to be it. Stanley curled his fingers into the sash he was working on embroidering, not in reaction to her questions, but as a reponse to an inner voice only he could hear.

***

When Belle presented Stanley with a whole cart full of books she selected for him about men who loved another man, multiple other men, truly, and deeply, thrilling romances that included even fairy tales, he looked at her for a moment as if he was going to say something very cutting before doing something very rash.

He just so happened to have a pair of thick scissors on his lap for cutting fabrics. She noted their position, took in his...anger.

“I’m rooting for you two. I’ve told you how refreshing I find it.”  


Madame de Garderobe looked up from her side of the room, where she sat at her table. “We love it too! Your commitment to each other is beautiful!”

“Our commitment,” Stanley said slowly, sitting up straight again, rather than hunching, swallowing with a gulp before he dared go on. “Our commitment is based on an impossibility. It is a lie. And I’m so _stuck_. Stuck.”  


Belle and Madame de Garderobe shared concerned glances. 

“Stuck how?” Belle asked.  


Stanley didn’t say any more that evening.

***

Belle didn’t often make her way down to the tavern, but LeFou, Tom, and Dick were splitting the responsibilities of running it, so she'd been no stranger to it, either.

“LeFou, are you happy, being with Stanley?” she asked, tired. Tom brought her a drink, giving her a pat on the head. She rolled her eyes, but appreciated the tease.

“Yeah, I reckon they’re _very_ happy,” Dick laughed. “I’ve heard it myself.” Belle blinked at the blatant disregard for hiding things from a woman’s delicate ears, took a moment to remind herself it was nice not to be treated differently due to being a woman, and then shook her head.  


LeFou looked at Dick, completely stunned to hear that he had been less than discreet about having fun with Stanley.

“It’s okay!” Tom laughed. “Go on, though. Put her mind at ease.”  


“Please do,” Belle implored. “I need to know. Well, I want to, anyway,” she amended, realizing after she said it how personal things would always be when it came to something that had kept him quiet and miserable, just as the hatred she had faced had done for her.  


“I really am!” LeFou exclaimed, to smiles from Tom and Dick. “I’ve never liked women, and I’ve always liked men. And he’s a really great one!”  


“He is,” Belle said happily. 

***

Back to Stanley, then. 

“Why are you stuck, Stanley?” she asked after he finished waxing poetic about his new heroine’s embroidery for a full five minutes straight.  


Stanley shuttered, sending her one of those glares he had that she almost enjoyed seeing because they seemed so different from the Stanley he usually tried to be.

“There are more sides to this than anyone could understand. You’re talking about getting us married, and that’s _so_  kind of you,” he sighed out. “It’s so kind, but I won’t do that to him.”  


“To him? He’s so happy,” she said. “Truly happy.”  


“No. Not ‘truly’. It’s all a lie,” Stanley said, shaking his head.  


Belle quickly stood, the stack of books about men like LeFou, men like she thought Stanley was, were all still there. “What is it, then? Do you like women too? That’s a highly studied phenomenon.”

Stanley blinked. “Well, yes. I do,” he admitted. 

Belle paused for a moment. She wondered if he had...anyone in mind.

“No, not you, or Madame!” he exclaimed, glancing over at the other married woman who was his friend.   


“My beautiful boy,” Madame returned fondly. It was a nickname Belle had heard her use ever since he’d started dressing in gowns for the public.  


Stanley took in a shuddering breath. He tossed the sketchbook he’d been smudging without realizing it, let it fall down as he made his way to the stack of books for himself. 

Belle crouched down on the ground near him, slowly, concerned for him. “What is it you’re looking for?” she asked.

Stanley, his eyes welled with tears that suddenly started to fall, said, “I’m not a beautiful boy.”

Belle’s arm went around him on instinct, and he let her pull him close, but he didn’t snuggle into it, like he didn’t think he was going to find true solace there.

“I am _not_  a boy. I’m not a boy.”  


“That’s an entirely different stack of books,” Belle muttered. Stanley froze, blinked for a moment.   


He assumed he didn’t understand her. “What?”

“You’re not a man?” she asked. “You’re...a woman?”  


Stanley stared at her. He blinked at her again. He wrinkled his nose. “How could I be?” he asked. “How can I?”

Belle’s free hand found Stanley’s face, with its rouge. She found Stanley’s shoulder, giving it a squeeze. She rested her hand over the place where Stanley’s heart beat beneath a corset and a dress.

“You just...are one,” she said simply. “If you are.”  


***

“See? I told you,” she said, the chair stuffed with half-read books all around her. “I’m stuck.”  


Belle had helped her understand many tribes’ and cultures’ understanding of gender and how it was a very complex subject that had more than two realities for ones identity.

Still, a woman was what she was. She could have been something that was neither man nor woman, could have been something that was both, but she was a woman.

“I can be with LeFou. I can be a beautiful boy,” Stanley said, mocking the phrase just a little as she touched the word. “I can be taken care of, and live the life any wife could ever dream of, while being a beautiful boy. He’s a very good man,” she said pointedly. “Very kind, very loving.”  


“He likes men,” Belle said sadly. Her eyes were welling up for Stanley, for the impossible situation she had described before Belle had understood.   


Stanley looked at her hands, where they were folded in her lap. “I can be happy with him as a beautiful boy. Or I can be...free, a woman who owns nothing. Cast out, like Agathe was.”

“Agathe was a powerful sorceress,” Belle corrected, but at the look on Stanley’s face, she acquiesced. “I see your point, my friend.”  


“No one is going to understand,” Stanley said, starting to panic. Because she had only become the beautiful boy. She had become the example of everything a man could do, if he chose, as Belle had tried to be an example for women.   


“We’ll make them,” Belle said fiercely, standing up. Stanley looked up at her, at her passion and the fire in her conviction. “Women deserve the world, Stanley. Either he can stay with you, if that will work for you both, or you can _thrive_  on your own, until you find someone who wants to love every womanly aspect of you.”  


Stanley tilted her head at that. “Belle?” she asked.

“What?” Belle asked, calming herself a bit, realizing she’d stood up in her passion.   


“Do you have any good books I could use to find myself a new name?”  


Belle looked so touched by the idea, of Stanley accepting her words of love for womankind, of Stanley wanting to be the most herself she could ever be, of Stanley being interested in _books_ , that she cried, letting the tears fall, and it messed up the rouge Stanley had put on her cheeks for her for fun.

“There are so, so many,” she said. “One of my favorites...is Romeo & Juliet.”   


With a soft smile, Stanley reached up for Belle’s slighter hand, and she enjoyed the solidarity in their grip as she was helped to her feet. “LeFou, or a man who likes women, or a woman who likes women,” she said fondly. 

“You can be alone, but you don’t have to be!” Belle enthused. She gripped Stanley’s hand.

Or, as one might also say, after the events of the next few hours, Belle gripped Juliet’s hand.


End file.
